In a networked infrastructure, a host computer or virtual machine on a host computer can be backed up by a central backup server in accordance with a policy for that particular host computer or virtual machine (“client”). The policy is set up once, by hand, and does not change unless and until the policy is manually changed. The policy applies to all application data sets on the client. Different data sets may be deemed to have greater or lesser value to the owner of the data sets. For example, a business may consider email communications to be critical, requiring backups every 15 minutes. That same business may consider accounting to be less critical, requiring backups every 8 hours. In addition, a data set may change very quickly at a first point in time, indicating that a great deal of data may be lost if the data set is not backed up frequently. At another point in time, the same data set may, at a second point in time, change very little, indicating that backups could be less frequent. Current backup policies do not monitor changes in data set characteristics and dynamically update backup policies in accordance with rules to change the policies.